Chapter 131 – Moment of Silence – Holly Hayfield

Leigha's funeral was a truly enlightening event. I learned things that I would've never known otherwise. The most prominent of these things was that Leigha was discarded by her parents and lived with her older brother.

This fact made the funeral an even more depressing event because it fouled the mood right from the start. The fact that Leigha's own parents didn't come to her burial wasn't lost on her relatives. No matter how they felt about her, she was still their daughter. Not showing for their daughter's funeral was obscenely low.

It was because of that tidbit that I had trouble talking to her relatives before the ceremony officially began. They weren't interested in talking to a novice school counselor when they were gossiping about Leigha's vindictive parents. This attitude appeared to run in the family. It dominated all the conversations ahead of the ceremony.

The introductions were carried out by a pastor hired by Leigha's brother. Leigha's brother was a mess, more so than most people in his position. It wasn't just the fact that his younger sister had passed away that destroyed him. It was the fact that he felt like he failed her on a fundamental level.

He blamed the entire situation on himself and wouldn't hear otherwise from anyone in attendance. I tried talking to him, his cousins tried talking to him, and the pastor running the ceremony tried talking to him. No one could reach him. This man was broken and inconsolable. I felt bad for him.

With all this going on I was worried about how people would react to the speech I wrote for Val. I worked hard on it and was afraid it would be met with silence and empty gazes. That wasn't the case. The speech stirred up an emotional response in an otherwise lethargic audience.

They were immersed in Val’s speech and seemed to fully appreciate the things she was saying. The speech wasn't about Leigha alone. It was about a world in which such things could happen to students. Officially Leigha was killed in a street fight. Unofficially, people had their own ideas about what happened.

Val's speech blew these ideas out of the water to focus on the fact that this was an avoidable tragedy. Things came about this way by a series of unfortunate events that led her down this path. Val's speech wasn't about retribution. It was about looking out for one-another and ensuring things like this couldn't happen.

The unfortunate part of this was that it caused Leigha's brother even more grief. He was already struggling to maintain his composure. He completely fell apart towards the end of Val's speech. Additionally, people were talking during the speech, cursing Leigha's parents for not taking better care of her. These were unexpected outcomes that I didn't consider while writing the speech.

The speech went well, despite those unexpected hiccups. It wasn't just because of the material I wrote for Val. It was Val herself who made the speech great. The speech was planned with her in mind. These were things that I knew were close to her heart and she delivered it with all that entailed.

Val walked away from the mic with a standing ovation. The pastor in charge of the ceremony returned to the stand with some closing words for Leigha before calling for a moment of silence. Everyone bowed their heads in silent contemplation and waited patiently.

That’s when Candace stumbled in through the church doors.

She looked like a mess, even more so than usual, with her hair all over the place and not dressed for the occasion. It was obvious she had been crying her eyes out by the faded tear trails left on her cheeks. Everyone turned to look at her since she made such a ruckus coming in. She froze upon the scene, and then quickly looked around for a seat. She took an empty chair near the back.

The pastor, having realized that Candace was garnering unwanted attention and whispers, ended the moment of silence before the allotted minute was up. He made a quick announcement that would allow everyone to line up to say their farewells as they walked by the open casket. Val and I chose to abstain, letting Leigha’s relatives take priority here.

Val and I left the building to sit on the steps together. She was sitting less tomboyish than usual since we were both wearing dresses. This was my first time seeing her dressed like this and it suited her well. Her motorcycle wasn't here since my mom was the one that dropped us off. We'd be waiting here until she got back.

This church was located in the countryside where it was quiet, save for the buzzing of insects in the woods. We were sitting close together since it was cold out. I had half a mind to go back inside, but hearing Leigha's brother sobbing in the distance made me forget about that idea.

Soon though, we were asked to come back in by some of Leigha's relatives. Specifically, they wanted to talk to Val about her speech. I didn't want to rain on their parade by telling them that I was the one that wrote it. Val mingled with them like a natural. I was probably the only one in the room that could tell how mentally exhausted she was.

I decided to leave Val to it while I went back outside. I wasn't alone. Erica joined me outside and we walked the property together. The property bordered on a small river stream that merged with a larger body of water downriver. Erica and I walked arm-in-arm beside the riverbank as we caught up.

"Did you manage to talk to Val before she got surrounded by people?" I asked.

"Yep! She asked me how I was doing and how my move went."

I waited for Erica to add more to that statement, but she didn't.

"That's it?" I asked.

"Does anything more need to be said?" Erica asked.

"I guess not... I was just expecting something more dramatic for some reason."

"I'm done with drama." Erica said. "I want the rest of my school life to be quiet and relaxing."

"Speaking of which, you transferred into a new school out of district, right? How’s that going?"

"It's going about as well as could be expected I guess. I haven't met many people but that's mostly due to the awkward timing of my transfer." She said. "You don't need to worry about me. I'm more worried about you."

"Me...?" I asked incredulously.

"You wrote Val's speech, didn't you?" She asked. "There was a part in the speech about safety and looking out for each other."

"I've got my student council friends to look out for me."

"What about outside of school?" She asked.

"I doubt anyone would attack me without reason outside of school."

"I don’t know. Maybe Leigha was in the wrong place at the wrong time? Maybe she was involved with something that she shouldn't have been? All that I know is that the town around the school feels less and less safe each passing week."

I carefully considered what she was saying, although I felt more self-assured about my safety. It wasn’t that she was entirely wrong. It’s because I was confident in my ability to outrun danger in most situations.

"You don’t have to worry about me. I know I'm usually modest about my abilities but I can probably outrun most people willing to chase me."

"There was a woman that went missing the other day that I know for a fact was involved with the ritual of knives..."

"I wasn't involved with that ritual." I said. "I'm not worried about being targeted."

Erica gave me an unbelieving look, but dropped the subject.

"I wish I could have some of your confidence." She said. "I'm so paranoid these days that I jump at the sound of branches tapping against my bedroom window."

"That's nothing to be ashamed about given everything you went through." I said.

"I tell myself that and I still feel like a jumpy little kid checking for monsters under her bed and outside her window." Erica said. "It's becoming easier over time, but this is a part of me that I'll have to live with for a while."

"I'm glad you’re learning to deal with it instead of being broken apart. That type of mental fortitude doesn't come easily. You should've seen me before the school year began. This past summer was the hardest one in my life."

"That’s hard to imagine." Erica said. "You've been stable and unshakable for as long as I've known you."

I chuckled sharply.

"Is that how I seem to you?" I asked seriously. "I often feel like anything but that on the inside. I second-guess myself and change my mind all the time. I may seem put-together on the surface but deep below I'm the same as anyone else."

"That or you're just modest." She said with a chuckle of her own.

Someone rudely bumped into us from behind, splitting us apart. Candace gave Erica a contemplative look before turning to focus solely on me. She took me by the wrist and held it tightly as though she were afraid I'd run off. I wasn't planning on it.

"We need to talk." She demanded.

"We were in the middle of talking before you barged in." Erica said. "Why don't you wait your turn and ask nicely?"

Candace swung back to Erica and swiped at her with a weak backhand. Erica easily dodged it, seeing as Candace wasn't seriously trying to hurt her. It seemed more like a warning.

"Scram! She's my student counselor, not yours, right? That's what you get for skipping schools in the middle of the school year!"

"You want to talk about Leigha?" I asked calmly.

Candace quickly turned back to me.

"I want to talk about a lot of things!" She said. "Just… Come with me."

"Where…?" Erica demanded. "Why should she go with you? How do we know that-…"

"It's none of your business! This is between me and Holly!" Candace shouted.

"No, she-..."Erica started to say.

I put a hand up to stop her.

"It's okay." I said to Erica, before turning to Candace. "I was planning to talk to you about your absence from school anyways."

"Good, let's go!" Candace said and pulled me away.

"Wait!" Erica called.

Erica's objections came too late. Candace frantically pulled me further down the riverbank. Her grip on me wasn't as tight as it could be, I realized. Her full strength wasn't there. I could wrench away from her if I really wanted to. If I simply ran off in a different direction she’d never catch up with me.

I wasn't going to do that though. She was obviously distraught over the loss of her friend and wanted to talk to me on that level. I was just surprised that she was coming to me so suddenly and so aggressively. Was she really coming to me for consolation? Many of her other friends came to the funeral after all.

We didn't have the friendliest history in the past, and that was putting it lightly. Was she really willing to open up to me over any of her friends? It seemed unlikely, but this was probably a desperate time for her. I could sympathize with that.

The place she brought me to was nowhere special. It was just further down the riverbank from the church. There wasn’t anything around us other than nature. I assumed that the reason she dragged me out this far was because she didn’t want anyone else hearing about our conversation.

I didn’t feel any animosity from her so I wasn’t freaking out. Her emotions were written all over her face and she was choking back tears. She let go of my wrist to put both her hands on my shoulders. She gripped her hands there tightly and looked away from me as she organized her thoughts.

“I… I was in a relationship with Leigha… I…” Candace said, struggling to continue.

This wasn’t some huge secret. I actually suspected this earlier based on how close they seemed to be with each other. Not only that, but this was a frequented rumor for the school rumor mill. Who-is-dating-who gossip was popular amongst regular students. Plenty of people assumed I was dating Val due to how closely we worked.

I put one hand on her shoulder. She swiped it away, clearly not interested in my comforting.

“I’m telling you this because it’s the only way you’ll understand where I’m coming from. Under any other circumstances I’d never talk to you like this.” She said. “That day that Leigha was… The day that she passed away… I went looking for her after she ran off somewhere. We had plans together that night...”

“I understand, go on.”

“We were only supposed to be at that warehouse for a few minutes. We were planning to ditch the rest of the group to grab dinner together. Once the police arrived to break up the fight I ran away from the place just like everyone else.”

“So when you didn’t find Leigha you got suspicious?”

“Exactly! She’d never cancel on our plans without telling me first! We weren’t arguing or anything. We had a tight relationship. I knew immediately that something was wrong. I know that she chased down Sylvia, or whatever her name is, alongside my friend Mariah. Mariah said she lost them down some road.”

“And you went looking for her?”

“I did… And… You won’t believe what I stumbled upon… I… This is why I wanted to talk to you.”

“You… discovered her body?” I asked.

“No! The police discovered her body! I discovered something else…”

“What, then?” I asked a little impatiently.

She gave me a grave look that was hard to puzzle out. A lot of the blood had drained from her face and now she looked more nervous than upset. She pulled out her cell phone and began scrolling through images in her image gallery. She selected a specific image from the collection and showed it to me.

It was a fuzzy picture of the Killing Cat coming out of an alleyway, barely illuminated by a distant parking lot light.

“The Killing Cat is a member of Naomi’s gang, I’m sure of it.” Candace said. “I need your help with this.”